Blogging Lesson Plans

ASNE Lesson Plans for Blogging

Other Lessons

Blogging is a great way for young journalists to practice writing and to create a web presence for themselves. Blogs are a type of website that many people think of as an online, public diary. Bloggers maintain their website, updating it regularly with original posts or sharing relevant content from other places on the web.

News publications will often have their own blog (or sometimes several to cover a range of topics) that staff writers post on. Some blog topics for high school students to consider might be high school sports, the process of making a school publication or yearbook, the goings-on in a school or community, movies, books, fashion or an issue in the news that’s important to you.

So the question is: What makes a good blog?

The topic is interesting to people other than the writer.

The topic is one that can be discussed for an extended period of time and has different aspects for the blogger to address.

The blog incorporates different media, such as writing, photos and videos.

The blog incorporates links to other places on the web which are relevant to the blog’s topic and interesting to its readers.

The blogger(s) establish a voice for the blog that attracts readers and creates followers. If you can provide a unique approach to your topic through your writing style, people will be more interested in checking your blog regularly because they know they will not be able to read your voice anywhere else.

The blog has a wide variety of posts covering different aspects of the topic. Good blogs are fun to read because they don’t feel repetitive.

The blog encourages participation from readers through the comment section. Not all blogs do this and it is certainly not a requirement, but it helps establish a loyal readership. Reader participation is also a great way to discover more ideas for blog posts.

The blog is updated regularly, no matter how many followers it has. It often takes months, even years, for a blog to take off if it ever does. Don’t be discouraged and keep posting! If you care about an issue, then blog about it to make other people care, too!

Blogger is a great resource for beginning journalists who are starting their first blog and offers the Blogger Getting Started Guide. It’s easy to use, so set up your own account and start writing!

Weebly allows teachers to create their own blog for a class and fosters interaction between teacher and students through blogs. Students maintain their own blog while commenting on their teacher’s and each other’s. Weebly inculcates regular usage of social media that journalists have become so dependent on and creates familiarity with blogging, another important journalistic tool.

Tumblr and WordPress are slightly more difficult to use, but they have larger readership. Tumblr focuses primarily on image sharing, but there is a place for text on Tumblr as well. WordPress is a content management system that allows its users to create a website from top to bottom, as opposed to a simple blog. But WordPress does have a blog option, as well.